> >James Rogers:
> > Another example is the United States, where unemployment is at a record
> > lows attributed almost entirely to increased productivity in the economy.
>
> Yawn. Your record lows have been refuted so often, it's getting boring. First,
> you count the jobs. Second, the standard of living has decreased together with
> the loans. Third, the accumulation of money has also increased. I have posted
> evidence for all of this before, but you will find it on my web page
> (http://www.excelsior.org/~erik/documents.html) in case you weren't there.
Refuted by whom? Actually, the official numbers are wrong in the other direction.
The government counts people who are changing jobs with even one day off between
them as unemployed for that whole month. The governments oft discredited BLS
statistics on cost of living (which is what the inflation rates are calculated from)
have been wildly high compared to actual consumer behavior, and have totally ignored
the productivity and qualititive improvements in a given product (take computers for
example, and dont digress on to another discussion on this, the point has already
been proven). All of this makes the inflation rate artifically high, so when
compared to wage growth, the claims of the left that actual income and standard of
living have been in decline is total and absolute hogwash. I and almost everyone I
know is living a much higher standard of living than 10 years ago. Just take a
computer. The peice of equipment I have on my desk right now I couldn't have bought
for less than $50,000.00 in the mid 80's, if it or something comparable were
available at all (its a PII 233, 64MRAM, 4.8gigHD). So for what I paid $900 for last
month, I couldn't have gotten if I had mortgaged my parents house back then. You say
a DECREASE??? EXCUSE ME???? Better put your head condom on buddy.
>
>
> > The only people who have to work harder are people too inflexible or too
> > stupid to work smarter. Average people would enjoy the benefits of
> > progress a great deal more if they spent more of their energy accustomizing
> > themselves to it rather than resisting it. Ability to adapt *is* an
> > evolutionary advantage.
>
> You have misunderstood me. I advocate many kinds of progress, from cloning to
> nanotechnology. Much is pointless, like cryo, but I'd like to see it develop
> anyway. It just has to be cleverly used. People are simply too uneducated. If
> we could educate the power elites, this would probably be good enough to
> ensure a better living.
>
> > In a free market economy, it is highly unlikely that all the major
> > industries would be making record profits and unemployment would be
> > increasing.
>
> I have the evidence around me. Our economy is as free as a bee (i.e. as free
> as the power elites want it to be). Darwinian selection doesn't work very well
> since people have gained the ability to destroy each other in large numbers.
Your credit base has been wiped out by the assimilation of east germany and eastern
european industries, which were hopelessly out moded. You guys are still in a
tryptophan coma after thanksgiving turkey.
> > Too protect populations from people with power who don't have your high
> > moral standards? Actually, there is a rather large difference between
> > European militaries and the US military in general (which may be tempering
> > your view). In many European countries (Germany, for example) the military
> > is used as an auxiliary police arm of the government, many times quite
> > violently. This is simply not the case with the professional US
> > militaries, which have virtually no adversarial contact within the domestic
> > population.
>
> The military is rarely, if ever used as an auxiliary police arm in Germany.
> Most of the time it just sits around doing nothing. (They want to participate
> in the coming war in Bosnia, but it remains to be seen whether they'll be able
> to do it. Our current defense minister won't take part in it, this is sure.)
> Still they buy weapons and cost us lots of money. I have to pay for this shit.
> I don't like that, but the less real government we have, the more I'll have to
> pay.
>
WHAT?
Government used to be just delivering the mail, defending the borders, and coining
money. Since the internet has proven that private industry can do 1 and 3 much
better than government, all that needs to be done now is defend the borders.
Anything else is highway robbery.
-- TANSTAAFL!!! Michael Lorrey ------------------------------------------------------------ mailto:retroman@together.net Inventor of the Lorrey Drive MikeySoft: Graphic Design/Animation/Publishing/Engineering ------------------------------------------------------------ How many fnords did you see before breakfast today?